Howard County police are investigating whether an armed robbery and an attempted armed robbery Thursday evening are linked to two men blamed for six other holdups in the past three weeks.
The two incidents, 80 minutes apart, occurred in Ellicott City andColumbia. No one was injured, police said.
About 9 p.m. Thursday, two armed men in black ski masks entered the Super Fresh grocery store in the 8800 block of Route 40 and demanded money, police reported. The men ran when an employee screamed.
One of the men carried a handgun and the other a shotgun, witnesses told police.
About 10:20 p.m., two armed men entered the lobby of the Marriott Courtyard in the 8900 block of Stanford Blvd. in Columbia's OwenBrown village, police said.
The robbers took money from the register and made employees give them their jewelry and other property before fleeing.
Police are not certain the men are the ones who committed six robberies in the county between Dec. 7 and 13, but "that's a consideration," said Sgt. Steve Keller, a police spokesman.
Robbers in those cases held up two gas stations, a hotel and a Chinese restaurant and a McDonald's restaurant twice.